"Nancy Springer - Snickerdoodles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

No, dammit, their laughter was not forced. They were loving every minute of
this.

тАЬHuman sacrifice,тАЭ Dane Orwig sug-gested.

тАЬHey, geekie-poo!тАЭ Patrick Sullivan pushed forward to physically accost
Blake. тАЬBurn any virgins lately?тАЭ

God burn them all, they knew quite well he was a virgin himself. Coldly
fu-rious, Blake threw off the hand clutch-ing his arm. тАЬShut up. All of you. I mean
it.тАЭ

Of course they would not shut up. At this point they should start throwing him
around. But Blake truly did not feel afraid, and something hard and glinting and more
than a little sinister had gathered in his black eyes, because Enola BloodsworthтАЩs
black textbook rode in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out and held it up with its face
toward them, like a hellfire preacher shaking the Bible. Slantwise the cat stared at
them from its cover.

тАЬI can give you acne like you wouldnтАЩt believe, Sullivan,тАЭ Blake challenged.
тАЬHell, why stop at acne? I can give you AIDS. How would you like that, if I gave
you AIDS?тАЭ

Because he wished it were true (though he knew it was not true) his voice
deepened, intense. He knew they would not hit him now, because of the power in his
voice. As in fact they did not. They stood wide-eyed, their grins pasted on their
faces, and he opened the black book so that they could see the pages, the
spiderwebby handwriting gone brown with age, the weird horned moons and
pentacles and pyramids and hex circles and embracing snakes. They stepped back,
then glanced at each other and seemed to find a second wind of truculence.

тАЬHow you gonna give him AIDS, geek?тАЭ Dane Orwig jeered. тАЬSlit your wrists
and drip on him?тАЭ

Blake told him, тАЬFor the last time. DonтАЩt call me geek.тАЭ

тАЬGreek, whatcha gonna do about it? Call up your faggot lover, the one with
the red tail?тАЭ

тАЬYouтАЩre so nice, Orwig, IтАЩll give you a choice.тАЭ Blake began to flip through
the pages of his grimoire. тАЬRoot canal work,тАЭ he read, or pretended to read. тАЬSexual
impotence. Drug-induced hal-lucinations. What do you say? Which would you
prefer I cursed you with?тАЭ

Orwig stared at him.

Raising the black book, Blake smiled like a skull and began at random to read,
phonetically intoning the weird foreign words. The recipes or whatever they were
sounded wonderfully im-pressive when read aloud in a sonorous voice.